Expert finally settles decades-long debate over which came first – chicken or egg | Great Britain | News

The great evolutionary question – which came first, the chicken or the egg – is a classic causality dilemma. However, one expert has an answer to the age-old question – although not as clear-cut as many would like.

Long before they became a breakfast favorite, eggs were developed by vertebrates called amniotes, which later evolved to lay eggs, giving them the freedom to inhabit dry land.

It is believed that eggs were first used in human food by the ancient Egyptians and Romans, who probably used eggs as a binding agent in their cakes and breads.

Experts believe that the first hard-shelled eggs hatched much earlier than chickens.

Dr. Ellen Mather, a paleontologist from Flinders University who specializes in ancient birds, told MailOnline: “If you put it in a way that refers to eggs as a whole, then the answer is certainly eggs.”

The earliest fossil record of eggs dates back more than 300 million years ago.

Humans have been consuming eggs for about 6 million years.

Chickens, on the other hand, have only been around for a few thousand years, while eggs already existed at the time of the dinosaurs.

“The first eggs laid on land are thought to have been laid by early reptiles much later in the Carboniferous, between 358 and 298 million years ago,” said Dr. Mather.

The origin of the eggs was more likely a product of modern reptiles, including snakes, which, according to Dr. Mathers emerged in the early Jurassic period and were laid by dinosaurs.

These ancient eggs probably resembled the appearance of lizard and bird eggs today.

The time difference between the egg and the chicken is around 100 million years in favor of the egg.

“The first true chickens would have hatched from eggs laid by partially domesticated red jungle fowl,” said Dr. Mathers.

However, she added: “Depending on how you interpret the question, both answers could be correct.”

Dr. Mathers concluded: “If the question is interpreted as referring to chicken eggs, then the answer would be a chicken.”